9617721 Millero In recent years, chemical and biological oceanographers have come to realize that primary production in vast areas of the ocean far from land, once thought to be limited by the availability of inorganic nitrogen coming into surface waters, is in fact limited by iron. Now that further , more detailed studies of this exciting discovery are underway, there is a need for in-depth understanding of the molecular-level behavior of dissolved iron in seawater. This proposal is directed toward meeting this need. The principal investigator, a leading world authority on the physical chemistry of seawater, will carry out a series of laboratory studies to determine the fundamental chemical properties of iron in seawater. These investigations will include studies of iron solubility under various conditions and of the complexation behavior of iron - i.e., the ability of inorganic and organic substances in seawater to bind iron and thus affect its solubility and biological availability. Both the kinetic and thermodynamic (equilibrium) aspects of iron solution and complexation will be studied in the context of more general theoretical models of seawater chemistry. ***
